Search Engines:
Finding What You Want on the NET
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Search engines work in many different ways. Some search titles or
headers of documents, others search the documents themselves and
still others search other indexes or directories. Read the
descriptions below.
ALTA VISTA
Offering compact or detailed searches through what the company claims
is the largest Web index, Digital Equipment Corporation's Alta Vista
can help you find your way through 8 billion words filling 16 million
Web pages. It also provides a full-text index of more than 13,000
newsgroups.The engine allows for simple and advanced queries. Point
to the Advanced Query page.
DEJANEWS
Search what the company claims is the world's largest publicly
searchable Usenet news archive with DejaNews. Versatile search
options allow you to find articles by date, author, subject, and
newsgroup. Usenet is a powerful Internet resource; DejaNews helps put
it to work for you. Tap into what teachers say about classrooms,
lessons, strategies, the literature they teach. Search for Children's
Literature discussions, Outcomes-Based Education, Whole Language--you
name it, someone is discussing it in cyberspace.
EXCITE
Excite tracks down information by searching for concepts, not just
keywords. It supports "and" and "or," and, by repeating important
words in the search request and offering variant spellings, you often
get strong hits. Updated weekly, Excite's database contains what the
company claims are more than 1.5 million Web pages, 50,000-plus Web
page reviews written by journalists, the latest two weeks of Usenet
news, and classifieds.
INFOSEEK
GUIDE
This searchable directory provides reviews of popular Internet
resources--Web sites, Usenet newsgroups, and FTP and Gopher
sites--cross-referenced across multiple topics. Once you've found a
relevant site, the "Find Similar" function searches for more of the
same. The guide performs precise searches for specific phrases and
proper names, and searches are sensitive to case, numbers, and
special characters (for example, AT&T; or 49ers).
LYCOS
This comprehensive catalog of the Internet finds what you need in
seconds, including text, graphics, sounds, and videos. Lycos is the
most open search of all the search engines, i.e., it's the least
bound to categories and more friendly to open searches.
MAGELLAN
Explore Magellan, McKinley's Internet Guide. Magellan provides
reviews and ratings for a vast collection of Web, FTP, and Gopher
sites, and Usenet newsgroups. Users can browse Magellan topics or
search specific keywords or phrases. Magellan's green-light feature
indicates content that is deemed appropriate for general viewing.
- SEARCH.COM
- Search.com allows you to use the search engine of your choice.
SHAREWARE.COM
Shareware.com makes it simple to find software on the Internet. More
than 200,000 files are available for easy searching, browsing, and
downloading from shareware and corporate archives.
YAHOO!
Arguably the pioneer Internet guide, Yahoo has built a comprehensive
cross-discipline resource base. It recognizes categories, but don't
let the constraints of their classification system get you down.
Yahoo now works in tandem with Alta Vista.
- YAHOOLIGANS!
- Yahoo designed for kids!
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